


Try New Things

by PoisonedMind



Series: Try verse [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Strangers, bad yoga (by writer and characters), questionable flirting techniques
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 12:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16095260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonedMind/pseuds/PoisonedMind
Summary: Phil tries yoga for the first time and it’s an absolutely harrowing experience except for the cute guy at the mat next to him who sucks just as badly as Phil does.





	Try New Things

**Author's Note:**

> My fill for the [@phandomficfests](https://phandomficfests.tumblr.com/) bingo fest and the prompt: yoga. 
> 
> I will quickly mention that I have no experience whatsoever with yoga but I tried.

Phil had thought it was a terrible idea from the moment he had clicked confirm on the website, but standing outside the door of the gym he starts to regret every life choice that could’ve possibly lead to him ever ending up right here. 

Louise had promised it wouldn’t be too bad. But she’s also Louise, full of energy and life and courage to try out new things. Phil is quiet and shy and anxious of anything new. The fact that she basically had to shove him out of the car when she had dropped him off in front of the gym doesn’t help his quickly depleting self-esteem either. 

He glances at his phone. Great. He’s even running late now.

“Are you going in or are you also contemplating whether health really is worth this?”

Phil startles and whips around to locate the source of the voice. A tall guy, taller than Phil even, stands behind him and he looks just as uncomfortable as Phil feels. 

“Uh,” Phil says, eloquently. The guy has brown curls and brown eyes and he’s looking at Phil like he’s expecting something. 

“Yoga?” Phil says and gestures vaguely to the door in front of them. Again, very eloquently. He at least pronounced the word correctly. Or did he? How _is_ yoga pronounced? 

The guy smiles then and oh, hello, dimples appear in his cheeks and fuck, Phil really is running late. 

“I’m, uh, I have a yoga class but it’s my first one and I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here.” Way to go, he managed a whole sentence this time. Phil mentally gives himself a high-five. 

“Me too. Someone told me yoga was an easy way to do some exercise but, man, I’m about as flexible as a hardwood door.” The guy shakes his head and Phil chuckles. Okay, at least they’re in the same boat. Then the guy locks his gaze at Phil again and there’s something flying around in Phil’s stomach. Neither of them break the eye contact and Phil’s heart is beginning to flutter.

“We should probably go in,” he mumbles and opens the door to walk in. Or, tries to walk in. Turns out the door opens outwards not inwards and because Phil is an awkward and unlucky person he ends up walking straight into the door. 

The guy laughs out loud behind him and Phil’s cheeks burn red. 

 

~~*~~

 

As soon as they walk into the class, Phil feels more out of place than he’s ever done in his entire life. He freezes in the doorway and his heart starts racing and he very seriously considers just turning around and walking out. Then the guy leans in close and, oh, he leans in very close, and whispers, “C’mon, we can do this.” He even nudges Phil with his elbow. 

Phil involuntarily shudders. 

“Yeah okay,” he says and they walk in and grab two mats and place them down on the floor beside each other. All the way in the back. Behind everyone else. Phil smiles. At least they’re going to be idiots together. 

The instructor starts talking, something about what yoga is and what it does. Phil is mildly bored and a lot more interested in sneaking glances at the guy beside him. 

He’s pretty. And cute. The curls catch the yellow lighting in the room in a way that makes them look so soft and Phil gets a weird urge to reach out and touch. 

“What’s your name?”

Phil blinks. “What?”

“I’m Dan,” the guy whispers, his dimple visible in his cheek and yeah, now Phil also wants to poke his finger in it to see how deep it actually is. And hey, what did he actually just say?

“Uh. Phil,” Phil whispers back probably a little too late. He looks away because he suddenly remembers that just staring openly at strangers is not normally accepted social behavior. 

“Well, nice to meet you, Phil,” the guy, Dan, whispers. Phil sneaks a glance at him as the instructor turns on music and sits down on the floor to actually start the class. 

Dan’s looking at Phil, too. 

“Alright,” the instructor says and Phil snaps back to reality and tries to pay attention. He can at least try to avoid looking like an idiot in front of everyone. “We will start today in a Child’s Pose.”

Phil is so fucked.

The instructor seems nice enough as she explains what to do to achieve the pose but Phil can feel his pulse quicken as everyone around him seems to do exactly what she instructs. 

Well, everyone except Dan. 

As Phil looks around his eyes land on Dan and, to be quite frank, his pose looks like he’s taking a dump. An uncomfortable dump. Phil snickers.

“Oi! Yours not any better!” Dan quips. Phil just laughs. Dan really didn’t lie when he said he wasn’t flexible. 

“Okay, on the next inhale come to a Table Top. Hands and knees firmly on the floor. Exhale and adjust so your shoulders are over your wrists and spread out your fingers.” Phil tries to follow but he doesn’t understand half of what she says and he ends up looking around to see what everyone else does. Or what Dan specifically is doing. Not because he wants to look at him. He’s just the easiest to follow. Or something like that.

“Now inhale slowly to a Cow Pose.” Phil bites his lip to keep from giggling at the name. Why do they have to give these poses such ridiculous names? Dan makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like someone trying to hold back a laugh. “Lift your tailbone up, drop your belly, and roll your shoulders back and look up to the sky.”

Phil looks up and the instructor is staring very intently at him and Dan. He doesn’t know if it’s because they’re that obviously bad or if she can hear them over the music.

“Exhale to Cat Pose. Tuck your chin and press into your hands. Good. Just like that. Inhale and drop your belly back to Cow Pose. Three more times.” She walks around them and comes to a stop behind Phil. 

“Really hollow out through your belly,” she says and puts her hands on him to help him adjust his pose. Phil can see Dan pointedly looking in the opposite direction, shoulders shaking suspiciously. 

She stops at Dan next.

“Breathe in and find that long spine, come on.” She tries to adjust Dan a little but he doesn’t seem to be able to stretch his back out more. He just looks like a plank of wood as he tries to push his belly down and Phil giggles at him. 

She gives them a pointed look as she walks away.

“Now inhale and come back toward a neutral spine. Exhale and find Downward Facing Dog.” Dan snorts loudly beside him. 

“What is it?” Phil whispers. For some reason he really wants to know what makes Dan laugh.

“Downwards Dog.” Dan says as if it’s the most obvious explanation in the world. Which it isn’t. 

Phil puffs, not because holding this position is kind of making him out of breath already, and says, “Not following.”

“The infamous Downwards Dog, Phil. It’s funny that it’s actually a thing.” Dan sounds very much like he’s out of breath too but trying not to show it. Phil grins. He likes the way Dan says his name around an exhale. 

He whispers, “Right,” and Dan huffs out a laugh. 

And then Dan’s arms give in under him and he ends up face planting onto the mat and Phil feels justified in laughing at him. He laughed at Phil walking into the door, Phil can laugh at him falling onto the floor. The instructor sends a glare in their direction.

“Would you two please be quiet back there?”

 

~~*~~

 

When Phil had stood outside the gym this morning, watching Louise’s car drive away, he hadn’t thought he’d come out of the class actually having enjoyed it. Or, well, some of it. Or, enjoyed someone in it. No, that sounds wrong, Phil shakes his head to get rid of that train of thought immediately. 

But yeah, aside from the actual exercising, the class had been fun. The instructor was a professional, the other people in it hadn’t made fun of him. Nor had they really acknowledged his existence at all except for when Dan made him laugh a little too soundly. And Dan was a nice surprise. He’s fun and easy to talk to and Phil is almost maybe looking forward to next week’s class so he can see him again. It’s not his fault that Dan is pretty and Phil likes looking at pretty things.

“What are you doing waiting out here again?”

Phil startles but Dan comes up beside him, knocking his shoulder into Phil’s lightly. 

“Waiting for Louise to come pick me up,” Phil says. Dan’s hair seems even curlier than before the class. The wind is playing with it and Phil kind of wishes he was wind, too, in this moment. 

“Oh.” Dan’s voice drops, actually his whole demeanor drops, and Phil wonders what he did wrong. He always manages to screw up something, somehow. 

“Is she your girlfriend?”

Oh.

Phil might be an idiot sometimes, but he’s not completely clueless. 

“Uh, no. Just my friend.” Phil finds a little bit of courage in the way Dan’s face lights up again. “She has a boyfriend and she isn’t really my type, anyway.” Phil hopes Dan isn’t completely clueless either. 

“Oh, really?” Dan looks at him, smirking. Phil likes Dan looking at him. 

“Yep.”

Dan leans in closer and Phil’s heart starts doing that flippy-over thing. “What is your type, Phil?”

Normally, no scratch that, in _any_ other situation, Phil would feel too shy and too awkward for this type of flirting with a complete stranger. But there’s just something about Dan that makes Phil feel at ease. And the way Dan smiles at him when Phil says his type is more tall, dark and handsome is enough to make Phil’s whole system set on fire. But in a good way. It’s thrilling but it’s nice. Dan is nice. 

“Philly, I’m nice enough to be your Uber but I don’t have all day!” Phil jumps at the sound of Louise yelling at him and Dan chuckles. Phil rolls his eyes and turns to Louise and says, “I’m coming, mum.”

He turns back to Dan to say goodbye.

Which is apparently not as easy as he thought it would be. Because he honestly doesn’t really want to say goodbye. 

“So…” Dan says. At least it seems like he doesn’t really want to say goodbye either. 

“I guess I’ll see you for next week’s class?” Phil says. He doesn’t know why he keeps his voice down.

“Yeah, I guess.” Dan is almost whispering, too. Phil steps a little closer. So he can hear him properly. 

“Or, uh, I mean…” Phil curses himself for being so awkward and tries to find the courage in Dan’s hopeful little smile again. 

“Yeah?” Dan prods. Phil bites his lip and his heart is hammering. Dan’s smile is growing. 

“We could, you know, see each other before, uh, next week?” He doesn’t know why he’s flapping his hands around like a bird learning to fly but Dan catches them in his own and dear God, Phil hadn’t noticed before but Dan has big hands. Huge. And they’re holding on to Phil’s.

“Oh, God.”

Dan laughs and Phil realises he said that out loud. He really wants to curse whoever decided to leave him all the genes for social ineptness. Probably his mum but Phil doesn’t actually want to curse his mum.

“Can I have your number then?” Dan is still smiling, big and happy and it’s kind of contagious, Dan’s smile. “So we can figure out how to meet up?”

“Yeah,” Phil says. They fish out their phones and exchange numbers and Phil’s hands are shaking with the energy running through him right now. 

This is one of those things he never, ever does. Exchanging phone numbers with a stranger. Phil isn’t the type of person who’s bold enough to do things like that. Dan winks at him as he puts his phone away and Phil guesses Dan just might be the exception to that rule. 

“I’ll text you,” they say in unison as Phil turns to walk to Louise’s car. They laugh and Phil feels like he’s floating. He grips onto the door handle just to be safe as he says, “Goodbye Dan. See you.”

“See you, Phil.” Dan smiles again and turns to walk away. 

Phil has barely closed the door behind him before Louise attacks him.

“Who was that?” She’s practically yelling and Phil can’t stop smiling.

“Just a guy from my yoga class.”

She keeps looking at him, a gleeful look glinting in her eyes. Phil can’t hold back, he’s too happy right now, he’s feeling too many things.

“We just talked.” He shrugs as nonchalantly as he can manage but he knows his face is betraying him. 

“You talked or you _talked?_ ” Louise asks, eyebrows wriggling. 

Phil laughs. “We talked.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it!  
> I'm on tumblr too at [bie-lovers](https://bie-lovers.tumblr.com/) if you want to say hi, but no pressure.  
> You can also [reblog](https://bie-lovers.tumblr.com/post/178449171336/try-new-things) this fic on tumblr if you want to. :)


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